QuoteReplyTopic: The Most One-sided Battle in History Posted: 02-Sep-2005 at 03:22

A bit of a spin-off from "Today in history"

Is it Omdurman?

At the Battle of Omdurmanin 1898, British troops, led by Lord Kitchener, defeat the Sudanese and re-occupy the Sudanese capital , Khartoum. It was a desive victory for the colonial power in the war against the forces of the Madhi Mohammed Ahmed, a religious leader in the Sudan, who had declared a Jihad against the Ottoman-British occupiers. The forces of the Madhi, Sudanese tribesman armed with guns and more traditional weapons like spears and swords, were no match for the British machine guns and artillery. On the British side, out of a force of approximately 8000, 48 were killed and 382 wounded, while the Sudanese casualties were somewhat higher, out a force of 50.000, 10.000 were killed and 15.000 were wounded.

In WW2 there was fortres in Belgium that was suposed to be impregnable. It had a strong heavy artilery defence, but it was defenceles against an air assult - something the Germans didn't fail to notice. Nobody expected an attack fro the air, after all. The Germans managed to capture it with just 15 casualties, where as the Belguese lost much more men. I don't rememder exact numbers and which fortres it was, but I'm sure professor Komnenos would gladly enlighten us.

Battle of Yarmuk when 20,000 arab soldiers inflicted heavy losses on Byzantine army of 40,000 men near Yarmuk river.

...which was largely due to 10,000+ men switching sides. The heavy losses were close to nearly the whole remaining Byzantine army though.

Anyway, there are certainly loads of examples of these world-wide, but the only I can think of now is Narva, where Karl XII's 9,700 strong army lost 600 men killing or capturing virtually every single man of the opposing 35,000 strong Russian army, and at Wallhof where Gustav Adolf with 1,000 infantry and about as many cavalrymen defeated a 7,000 strong Polish army. The Poles lost 1,500-2,000 men dead and wounded, the Swedes zero dead and a dozen or two wounded.

Agincourt 10-15,000 French dead including the post-battle prisoner massacre to a couple of hundred English.

1st day of the Somme, how many Germans died?

Pearl Harbour, 2,898 Amercans vs 64 Japanese.

Trafalgar 14,000 French and Spanish killed vs 449 British.

The Bismark incident probably provided two of the most one sided battle Hood and Prince of Wales vs Bismark and a few days later Bismark vs Rodney and King George V. Also Duke of York vs Scharnhorst. All were practical no casualties on the victor, so infinity to 1.

I'd have to include the battle of Leyte Gulf which resulted in the virtual destruction in the Japanese surface fleet as well as its naval air force. This was likely the last great hurrah in naval warfare.

The Bismark incident probably provided two of the most one sided battle Hood and Prince of Wales vs Bismark and a few days later Bismark vs Rodney and King George V. Also Duke of York vs Scharnhorst. All were practical no casualties on the victor, so infinity to 1.

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